I Know Your Face

Procrastination is Pitiful

There many kinds of anger, many different levels that everyone experiences throughout their lives. Some justify cruel actions, but most do not. You may be a little bit annoyed that your history test was really difficult, and you may insist that it justified writing the dates down on your hand, but it doesn't. You should've studied more, you should've been prepared, and yet when your test comes back with a big F across the front, suddenly it's the teacher's fault. Or possibly when your score in a soccer game is really close to that of the other team, and even though you intentionally tripped someone to try to get to the ball first, suddenly it's the referee's fault when he calls the foul. It's those little things in life, those annoying little stabs of selfishness that you try to rationalize into someone else's fault. But it's your fault in the end; it's always yours, so why do we let ourselves blame someone else? Why do we do horrible things to people when they've done nothing to deserve it? It was a question everyone asks themselves at least once in their life, even if they don't realize what question they're asking. John asks himself that question every day, or at least, he will. But now he had nothing to worry about, right now he had no anger towards Sherlock Holmes.
"Okay, okay, just hear me out for like, thirty more seconds." Greg begged, dragging John down the hallway as they fought their way through a torrent of freshmen. The two of them were seniors, looking onwards to college but for the time being they were trapped between the many concreate walls of their prisonlike high school.
"I don't really care about what she said to you, she doesn't like you." John insisted, only half listening to Greg's rambling about Molly Hooper, his forever crush. Unfortunately Molly was aware of Greg's hopeless feelings, and therefore she made sure to avoid him at all costs. Greg was sweet, yet in most girls' eyes he was very overwhelming.
"Well, she might, you never know, you saw the look on her face, didn't you?" Greg wondered.
"I'm not even in your class Greg, we met in the hallway!" John defended. Greg sighed, but nodded, looking a little bit worried about his mental health.
"You're spoiled John, you've got Mary, but who do I have? Come on, I'm so much more attractive than you and she doesn't even know my name." Greg groaned.
"Well I got a girlfriend because I'm not creepy, I don't make big deals out of nothing." John defended. Greg sighed heavily, as if he knew that he had already lost this argument.
"Well she gave me that I hate you because I love you kind of look. It's a very obvious look you'd have to be blind to miss it." Greg insisted.
"Oh, then we can agree on one thing then." John decided.
"That she loves me?" Greg asked hopefully.
"That you're blind." John admitted. Greg frowned, jumping in front of a line of oncoming people to get into their designated classroom. It was math, of course, the most miserable of all classes in the entire world. John was really bad at math, like, seriously miserable, but obviously that didn't stop him from taking all of the accelerated and honors classes because...reasons. He always insisted to his guidance counselors that he really shouldn't be thrown into a class with all the smart kids, but alas they brought up his future and his colleges and suddenly he was totally ready to take AP classes. So, of course, he ended up stuck here, with an impossible teacher teaching an impossible subject much too fast, surrounded by people who all knew what they were doing. It was a miracle John even made it into this class, but then again, Greg did as well, so he wasn't the only one out of place. John walked over to his seat and muttered a little goodbye to Greg, who was still looking very excited about Molly's comment to him in his previous class. She probably just said bless you when he sneezed, and somehow Greg would turn that into a love confession. John slouched in his desk, not even bothering to cast an eye to his neighbor as he took out his phone, checking his snapchat while he waited for the class to begin.
"You really shouldn't be on your phone." insisted the boy next to him, and John just shook his head in annoyance.
"You really shouldn't tell me what to do." John snapped, sending a picture of his feet on the floor with a caption of I wish for death. It seemed fitting for the class that he was in.
"Alright class, get out your homework!" the teacher shouted, Mr. Anderson, everyone's least favorite teacher. He taught out of the book, literally, John wondered if he even knew what he was talking about half the time. But nevertheless he grabbed his half-finished homework from his overflowing folder, squinting to try to read the scrawled numbers and formulas. He was trying desperately to even remember what they had been doing, but obviously he was at a loss for that as well.
"Alright, can anyone tell me the answer for number one?" Mr. Anderson asked, looking around at the silent room. John stuffed his phone hastily in his pocket, knowing that if the teacher caught him scrolling he would be sentenced for life in prison, math prison that is, which is even worse.
"Anyone? No? Mr. Watson?" Mr. Anderson asked. John looked up at him with a sarcastic little smile, pleading for him to call on anyone else. John looked at his scrawled numbers, clearing his throat very worriedly.
"I have here...um..." John looked at his paper in horror, seeing that he had only done half of the problem, probably having done it in class and forgotten about it when he went to do the next ones at home. Oh, this was a disaster.
"Seven." whispered his neighbor quietly. John shook his head, trying to do the problem in his head and ignoring the boy that sat next to him.
"Mr. Watson?" Mr. Anderson asked impatiently.
"Seven." The boy hissed. John sighed heavily, not seeing any other option here.
"Seven?" John said loudly, sounding very unsure of himself. Mr. Anderson sighed heavily, crossing his arms and glaring at John from behind his glasses.
"Obviously someone had been neglecting to take notes." He muttered, and the whole class, even Greg, laughed. John glared at his neighbor, seeing him chuckling to himself proudly, as if that had been some great joke. He looked like some sort of reject Muppet, with his sharp cheekbones and his unnaturally curly hair, John had a deep seated hate for the child genius. Sherlock Holmes, the boy with all of the answers. John spent the rest of the class tapping his pencil against his desk in various rhythms, it was very satisfying, especially to the background noise of ACDC playing in his head. John had almost forgotten where he was, in the class of hell itself, before Mr. Anderson's words tore him back into reality.
"Well then, quiz on all of that tomorrow, you're all free to mingle until the bell rings." Mr. Anderson decided, waving his hands around and shutting his book triumphantly.
"Wait, a quiz?" John hissed to Sherlock, who was now digging around in his backpack for a very thick book.
"Yes, didn't you hear him?" Sherlock wondered, a small smile on his lips, as if he loved to see John struggle.
"No of course not, I don't listen to anything he says." John hissed.
"Well I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe if you stopped tapping your pencil and actually gave a da*n about your education you wouldn't be in this situation." Sherlock muttered, opening up the book and burying his nose into it. John just stared at him, still hopeful that he would get a little bit of sympathy.
"Can I copy your notes?" John wondered. Sherlock hummed for a moment, an annoying little buzzing sound that made John want to swat him like the fly he was.
"No, I put them away, too much effort." Sherlock sighed. John groaned loudly, shaking his head in defeat.
"Ya, whatever, thanks for your help." He snapped, glaring at Sherlock and waiting for a response. There was a moment of rather angry silence, so John just shook his head, stuffing his homework back into his bag.
"You're welcome." Sherlock muttered finally, turning the page of his book. John groaned, wanting very desperately to knock that book out of his delicate hands, just to see how he would react. So John just got up, making his way over to Greg hoping that he would have something to show for this hour of class time.
"Hey Greg, can I copy your notes?" John wondered. Greg shrugged, looking very apologetic.
"Well, ya...the thing about that..." Greg muttered, holding up his sheet of notebook paper. John groaned loudly, seeing that instead of taking the notes Greg had sketched a picture of a very horrible looking tree.
"That's horrible." John decided.
"It could use some work, but look at the initials on it, huh? Art." Greg said proudly, holding the picture closer to John's face so that he could read. Drawn in a darker shade of grey over the trunk of the crooked tree where the letters GL and MH, obviously his hopes leaked into his artwork.
"That's very nice Greg." John lied. "So do you have the notes?"
"Nope, I'm afraid I'm in the same boat as you." Greg admitted.
"Ya, at least you don't have the bloody psychopath sitting next to you." John muttered, casting a hateful glare over to Sherlock, who was still reading his book innocently.
"Ya well, give him some credit; at least he knows what he's doing." Greg insisted, placing the picture very neatly into his folder before zipping his backpack up and watching the clock anxiously.
"Well, at least we're done." John decided, hearing the final bell ring through the automatic loud speakers. Yay, home sweet home. Or, more accurately, soccer practice, which was a home in itself. John and Greg both headed down to the locker rooms, changing and lumbering out onto the field. Throughout the two hour practice John was finally able to concentrate on something other than the impending math test, he was able to really focus on his aching muscles and parched throat. Playing out in the heat was torture, but when all the drills had ended John knew that his torture was just beginning.
"I'll see you tomorrow John!" Greg called, waving at John from the sidewalk as John started off in his clunky red car. John waved halfheartedly, wishing he could do a couple of more practice games just for fun. He really didn't want to have to study for the test, especially when he didn't even know what was on it. So he didn't. When John got home he threw his backpack on the ground, lounging on his bed and wasting away his valuable time on his phone, scrolling through all of his social media and posting on every single sight, watching his notifications lazily without any intention of preparing at all. He texted Mary a little bit, whining about school and family and life. Then he ate dinner with his family and listened to his mother ramble on about how Harry should be practicing for her driving test, and his father was going on about work, and Harry just sat still and pretended they all didn't exist. Harry was only two years younger than John but she had the attitude of a college student, she was sixteen and she just didn't want to be here.
"So John, any homework?" Mrs. Watson asked, ladling some more soup into her bowl. It wasn't really a soup night, in fact it was so hot out John suspected he had sweated off an entire layer of skin, but that didn't seem to stop his mother from making cream of broccoli. He thought guiltily back to his quiz but shook his head.
"Nothing." He lied. So he was free to go back up to his room, his parents deciding to quiz Harry just one more time about what to do at a stoplight. John wasted away once more on his phone, and when finally the clock creeped to eleven o'clock he decided that he better go to bed. If he failed the test that was fine, but he had a soccer game the next day and there was no way he was going to be tired for that. So John nestled down into his blankets and turned off the lamp, closing his eyes one last time before he fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep.

 John trudged into school the next morning still half asleep, shuffling along in his soccer sweatpants and trying to pat his hair down with his hand. He really needed some coffee, but unfortunately that didn't cross his mind before he got here, and it's not like he could just leave. So he just went over to his locker, undoing the lock by memory and shoving his lunch box on top of all of his discarded summer reading books. 

"Hey John, how's my favorite mathematician?" Greg wondered with a big smile. John looked at him curiously.
"What in the world does that mean?" he wondered nervously, slightly hoping that he had transferred through reality and suddenly he was actually smart.
"Are you signed up for the group text messages for the class?" Greg wondered. John just laughed, shaking his head in amusement.
"Course not, I don't care what grimy old Anderson has to say outside of class." John insisted.
"Well you might want to look sometimes." Greg suggested, pulling out his phone and shoving the text conversation into John's face. John read it nervously, and as his eyes moved and his fingers scrolled his heart dropped.
"The quiz is now a unit test? Why in the world didn't he tell us!?" John exclaimed in horror, nearly dropping Greg's new phone in his numb fingers.
"Well, he did tell us, this text came out right after soccer practice ended." Greg pointed out. "Didn't you study?"
"No of course not, didn't you see all my Twitter posts?" John wondered, glaring at Greg in anger.
"No, I was studying!" Greg defended. John groaned loudly, shaking his head in annoyance.
"What was on it, anything?" John wondered.
"Oh you know, everything from this last week." Greg admitted, as if that wasn't really a big deal.
"This is just wonderful, you know that? Wonderful." John snapped.
"I made a study guide, if you want to copy it down to look at how I did all the problems and stuff." Greg offered. John nodded desperately, shutting his locker very agressivley, having the strangest urge to send his head through the metal. Greg pulled out his study guide which, for a guy who had been drawing a tree in class, was very detailed.
"Greg you just saved my life." John decided, holding the sheet up to the lockers and snapping a picture of it with his phone.
"You'll copy it down then?" Greg wondered, as if worried John was going to sell the picture on the black market or something.
"Ya, I will, thanks so much." John agreed, taking a picture of the other side of the paper before handing it back to Greg.
"Alright then, I'm off to Spanish." Greg decided with a sigh, looking over the paper one more time for luck.
"Hola!" John agreed, assuming that meant goodbye. Greg just laughed, rolling his eyes.
"Well John, you've got the looks, sometimes..." he muttered, observing John's unruly hair, "But you definitely don't have the brains."
"Shut up Greg, get out of my sight, vamanos!" John insisted, waving his hands in annoyance.
"Ya, alright, I'm leaving." Greg muttered with a little laugh.
"Thanks again." John muttered, and Greg just gave him a sarcastic smile.
"Ya well, you owe me one." he decided, and with that he made his way down the hallway, a small little skip in his step because...optimism. I guess. Greg was a morning person, which always irritated John because he most certainly was not. John would probably take Hell over waking up before seven o'clock. John sighed heavily, but he made his way off to his own first period, completely intending on scribbling down those notes from his phone. But after two periods of talking about soccer and an entire lunch period of trying to decide just what kind of processed meat was in his chicken nuggets, guess what John didn't do? Yes, you're right; he didn't copy down the notes! Ever the procrastinator. So when the bell rang to switch to his last period, John was hit full in the head with the terrifying realization that he didn't study at all for something as big as a unit test. A unit test for God's sake, why in the world would Mr. Anderson not at least give them a little bit of notice for something as big as that? He was a moron, he really was. But how was John going to pass the test if he didn't study, if he didn't even have notes? Ugh, he had wasted his entire day and night doing nothing, why didn't he just look through the book a little bit more?
"Are you ready for this?" Greg wondered with a smile, sitting in his chair and looking proud of himself.
"Of course I'm not, shut up." John snapped, slouching over to his desk next to Sherlock, who was sitting very stiffly in his chair, his back so straight it was almost worrying.
"Well don't you look confident?" John snapped. The ghost of a smile appeared on Sherlock's cupid bow lips, staring into space as if there was someone looking back.
"That's because I am." Sherlock said simply. John threw his backpack onto the floor, making sure to shove his phone, his backup plan, into his pocket.
"You're annoying." John decided childishly.
"And you're incompetent." Sherlock agreed. John groaned, shaking his head and ignoring his miserable neighbor. Just get through this one little test and he was going to go to the game, thirty or so questions stood in the way of him and a winning goal, a crowd's cheering, Mary's adoring face in the crowd... Not the time for daydreaming about Mary or any of that, no, math time. Obviously.